Computer-Implemented Method, System and Program Product For Quoting A Business Service

• US 20080147460A1
• Filed: 11/06/2007
• Published: 06/19/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 12/18/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: LinkedIn Corporation (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Ollivier, Jean-Christophe
• Granted Patent: US 7,769,616 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/7
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06315 Needs-based resource requirements planning or analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0637 Strategic management or analysis, e.g. setting a goal or target of an organisation; Planning actions based on goals; Analysis or evaluation of effectiveness of goals
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0206 Price or cost determination based on market factors

Abstract

The present invention provides a method, system and computer program product for quoting a business service wherein a large variety of predefined scenario may be exercised to assess a business quotation in real time. The invention allows to establish relationships between an infrastructure design and the various components of the solution to offer a flexible solution that automatically check the impact of changes and new requirements.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method for quoting a business solution for a customer, comprising the steps of:

receiving customer requirements;

determining price units to be invoiced to customer;

designing a business solution to map the customer requirements;

decomposing the business solution into cost elements;

creating rules to link the price units to the cost elements; and

computing a quotation by applying the rules created to at least one business rollout scenario.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the step of determining price units further comprises the steps of associating a marketable price to the price unit.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein the price units is a price applicable to units from a group of technical units, application units or business units.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the cost elements is individual or multiple technical components of the business solution.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the rules creation step comprises the step of defining rules between a price units deployment and a cost element to be deployed to support said price units deployment.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the computing step further comprises the step of selecting a business rollout scenario among a plurality of predefined scenarios.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein the computing step is run for a predefined rollout time period.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein any of the price units, cost elements, or rules is modified before the computing step is run.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the computer-implemented method is implemented in conjunction with a spreadsheet computer program.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of generating a dashboard summary showing the computing step results.

11. A computer system for quoting a business solution for a customer, comprising:

means for receiving customer requirements;

means for determining price units to be invoiced to customer;

means for designing a business solution to map the customer requirements;

means for decomposing the business solution into cost elements;

means for creating rules to link the price units to the cost elements; and

means for computing a quotation by applying the rules created to at least one business rollout scenario.

12. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the means for determining price units further comprises means for associating a marketable price to the price unit.

13. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the price units is a price applicable to units from a group of technical units, application units or business units.

14. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the cost elements is individual or multiple technical components of the business solution.

15. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the means for creating rules comprises the means defining rules between a price units deployment and a cost element to be deployed to support said price units deployment.

16. The computer system of claim 11, wherein the means for computing further comprises means for selecting a business rollout scenario among a plurality of predefined scenarios.

17. A computer program product comprising programming code stored on a computer readable medium for quoting a business solution for a customer, comprising:

means for receiving customer requirements;

means for determining price units to be invoiced to customer;

means for designing a business solution to map the customer requirements;

means for decomposing the business solution into cost elements;

means for creating rules to link the price units to the cost elements; and

means for computing a quotation by applying the rules created to at least one business rollout scenario.

18. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the means for determining price units further comprises means for associating a marketable price to the price unit.

19. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the means for creating rules comprises the means defining rules between a price units deployment and a cost element to be deployed to support said price units deployment.

20. The computer program product of claim 17, wherein the means for computing further comprises means for selecting a business rollout scenario among a plurality of predefined scenarios.